Sent my way by quite a few keen-eyed Aussie correspondents, including Thomas Mudgway, who offers this commentary:

Another update from Sydney, this time fairly major. Transport for NSW is making some big changes to Sydney Trains’ operating patterns, with a new order of trains allowing them to boost the Western Line by something like 300 extra services per week. The T2 line cluster has been split so that we now have a T8, which runs to Revesby via the Airport and Macarthur via Sydenham, and a rump T2 which runs to Leppington via Granville but now also has a new spur to Parramatta. The T5 has completed its progression along the Richmond Line, now reaching its end. It seems only a matter of time now until it fully supersedes the T1 there. The T3 is unchanged—for now. However, it will be closed over summer school holidays as far as Bankstown for five years from 2019 to allow it to become part of the new metro line. What will happen to the remainder of the line after that point is currently unclear—perhaps the T2 will be routed that way rather than its current route via Merrylands? Who knows? The T6 will also be closing soon as well, to undergo a conversion to light rail. This raises the possibility of there being two empty slots in Sydney Trains’ numbering scheme.

Stylistically the map is something of a departure from its predecessors, although in its current draft form it should be taken with a grain of salt. The route names are back alongside the line numbers at the various termini, although simplified to show only the name of the specific route branch rather than the name of the whole line cluster as previously. The most immediately obvious change, however, is that the lines themselves have been made much thinner, while the stations have remained about the same size, which gives quite a different aesthetic.

Transit Maps says:

Sydney’s rail network is a bit of a transitional phase at the moment. After decades of remaining pretty much the same both in terms of size and service patterns, things are now changing rapidly. While this is exciting news, it does make maintaining and updating the system map a bit of a thankless chore. That said, I’m not a massive fan of this latest proposed version, which takes quite a few retrograde steps from the previous iteration (January 2016, 3.5 stars).

First off is the thinner route lines, which cause all the station markers to “bubble” out past the edge of each line. I’ve never found this a particularly attractive approach, and my opinion remains unchanged here. The bigger gap between adjacent route lines does allow them to be followed a bit easier, so there is a bit of benefit to be had… if only it didn’t look so bumpy.

The cluster of route lines through the City Circle is starting to become unwieldy with the addition of the new light blue T2 line and the new Sydney Metro line. There’s even a bit of cheating going on with the way that the Green T8 line now overlaps itself on the way in and out of the city. I think a good case could be made to merge all the lines that run the full City Circle (the T2, T4 and T8) into one route line once past Central or even Redfern, which would save considerable space and make the routing of the proposed Metro line fit into the space a lot more coherently.

The addition of the destination names to each outer terminus of the lines is mostly redundant, as in most cases that destination is the same as the final station name. In the cases that they’re different, the destination name is somewhat ambiguous… “Inner West” for Parramatta? Since when was Parramatta part of the inner west? And unfortunately, the two destination labels that are set diagonally at Parramatta and Lidcombe look pretty awful.

The addition of the light blue T2 line helps break down and understand service patterns in the southwest much more easily, but the entire north and northwest of the city is still denoted by one single line, the yellow T1, with multiple endpoints. It’s all a little inconsistent and peculiar for my liking… or maybe I’m still just missing the distinctive red of the old Northern Line through Epping and Hornsby.

I still don’t understand why some non-interchange station names are set bolder than others on the map. Do some trains terminate there? Can you make bus connections there? Are the stations seen as important destination stations? Or all of the above? It all just looks pretty random without any explanation.

Our rating: As Thomas says, this is a draft document and may or may not be final, but I’m not particularly thrilled with what I see at the moment. Two-and-half stars.

Source: Transport for NSW website (link no longer active)